Thom Scott / Times-Picayune Archive"He was good," Frances Schneider said of her father, Manuel Hernandez, the founder of Manuel's Hot Tamales. "He knew all the people of the city. (Mayor) Chet Morrisey used to go and eat tamales. He had so many friends. He did anything for anybody if he could."

Frances Schneider says she and her father, Manuel Hernandez, the founder of Manuel's Hot Tamales, liked the same things.

"We both loved plants. He liked fruits and all. He used to take me to Ruta's, a nursery on Carrollton, when I was small, to get plants to fix my garden. Mama used to say, 'Why did you take her to do all that?' And he would say, 'Oh, Chiqui, we like it.'"

Her father grew up hard in Mexico, Schneider said, in a family of nine girls and two boys. He "was a little bit wild, and he used to go over to the bullpen and ride the dangerous bulls. His sisters put him in school with the Jesuits."

Bill Schneider III said his grandfather was born in 1892 and the family had a large cattle ranch, a land grant from Spain. Because the French were arriving during the Revolution, the property was donated to the church so the invaders couldn't take it, and the owners could still work the land. The new authorities put out warrants on all the men.

"He shipped out in the merchant marines," Bill Schneider said. During World War I, Hernandez ferried ships to Europe.

After sailing around the world, Hernandez landed in New Orleans and stayed. He played music for a living, Bill Schneider said.

"He could play any string instrument, from the violin to mandolin, guitar, classical guitar," Bill Schneider said. He played in mariachi-type bands, and had several stringed instruments. "He made music until people told him he should make hot tamales."

In a boarding house, Manuel Hernandez of Mexico City met and married Rosina Ruegger, of Italian descent, who was raised in Mother Cabrini Convent.

Chris Granger / The Times-Picayune Mike Bettencourtt and his wife, Lori, plan to remake Manuel's Hot Tamales into a new poboy shop. Pictured here, Mike takes a look at one of the stands used to sell the tamales on the streets of New Orleans. Read more on Manuel's Hot Tamales »

(At an anniversary event at the convent, Frances Schneider was told, " 'You know, your mother was a relic,' " she says. She was told that as an infant, Mother Cabrini carried her around "all over the place like a relic, and at Easter time, Mother Cabrini used to put her in the crib with the baby infant Jesus.")

Manuel and Rosina ran off and got married, Frances Schneider said. They had four daughters.

"My mama said he was so good. He used to come home from work and would get in the floor and play with his four little girls," Frances Schneider said.

All the daughters rolled tamales. At first, Frances Schneider said, her mother helped in the business, spreading corn meal on one side of a corn shuck, then putting meat on them and rolling them up. For the family, Rosina Hernandez made both Spanish and Italian meals.

The tamales were sold from a push cart lined with stainless steel. The interior was lined with newspapers, Frances Schneider said. Hernandez pushed it from 4025 Cleveland, their home, to Canal Street and Carrollton Avenue. When he was 60 years old in 1954, according to newspaper reports, he fought off two thugs who were about 19. One put a rope around his neck and the other tried to take his money.

Her mother found the house on Carrollton "to get him out of the rain," Frances Schneider said. "She took him off the street corner because of the rain and all."

Frances Hernandez married Bill Schneider Jr., and the two of them ran the Manuel's restaurant on Jefferson Highway. Bill Jr., became co-owner of the business with Manuel. The business prospered.

"My husband and my father went to Houston to try to get a machine" to make tamales, but nothing they found had the capacity or the quality they wanted. So, "they came back and designed it. Dixie Machine made every piece of it. All stainless steel," Frances Schneider said.

At the tamale factory, batches of meat, cornmeal and spices were put in the machine, which extruded the small cylindrical tamales. Workers put them on trays, then to a rolling room, where they were wrapped in tamale papers. The machine and the crew cranked out 16,000 tamales a week.

Manuel was known for his generosity and his sense of humor.

"He was good," Frances Schneider said of her father. "He knew all the people of the city. (Mayor) Chet Morrisey used to go and eat tamales. He had so many friends. He did anything for anybody if he could."

When he died in 1968, his daughter said, "You couldn't get in that cemetery, there were so many flowers." He is interred in Metairie Cemetery. Rosina died in 1974.

In 1975, the Schneiders moved into the home on Carrollton above the tamale factory.

"It was so comfortable. I loved my upstairs," Frances Schneider said. She had French Provincial decor.

Downstairs, she helped sell tamales from the take-out window. One Saturday night, a limosine pulled up in front and a driver said he wanted to buy $100 worth of tamales, she remembers. Bill Schneider Jr. died in l999.

Frances Schneider has lots of memories. She is proud of the fact that the USDA inspector, who had an office inside the factory, could never write them up "for nothing. We sprayed for roaches every Monday. They used to come in early, sneaking around, to see if they could find (a roach). We never had one. And I never had a roach upstairs, either."

After Katrina ruined the underinsured tamale factory, contractors paid to clean and gut the place took about $200,000 worth of stainless steel equipment, Bill Schneider III estimates.

The tamale machine was taken apart, piece by piece, and removed from the downstairs. The Schnieders still have all the pieces.